Editing Bnetd (section)

== Blizzard takedown demand and lawsuit ==

In February 2002, Blizzard filed a [[Digital Millennium Copyright Act#Title II: Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act|DMCA safe harbor]] takedown demand against bnetd with their [[Internet service provider]] (ISP).  Blizzard subsequently filed suit against the developers of bnetd and their ISP, Internet Gateway, in the [[United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri]].  The lawsuit alleged copyright infringement, [[trademark infringement]], and violations of their games' [[EULA|End User License Agreement]] (sometimes referred to as a [[clickwrap]] license) and DMCA [[anti-circumvention]] prohibitions, in what would become an important test case for portions of that law.  The [[Electronic Frontier Foundation]] mounted a defense, in which defendants denied copying any portion of battle.net or Blizzard games, denied the validity of the battle.net trademark, denied that CD keys are an anti-piracy measure, and denied that bnetd is a circumvention tool.

In September 2004, the court disagreed and granted [[summary judgement]] to Blizzard.  On appeal, defendants argued that federal copyright law, which permits reverse engineering, [[federal preemption|preempts]] California state contract law, upon which the EULA's prohibition on reverse engineering is grounded.

In September 2005, the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit|Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals]] rejected the defendants' argument and affirmed the lower court's decision. "Appellants failed to establish a genuine issue of material fact as to the applicability of the interoperability exception [of the DMCA]. The district court properly granted summary judgement in favor of Blizzard and [[Vivendi Universal|Vivendi]] on the operability exception." The appeals court further ruled that bnetd circumvents [[copy protection]] in violation of the DMCA.<ref>{{cite web | author = United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit | author-link = United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit | year = 2005 | title = Davidson & Associates DBA Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.; Vivendi Universal Inc. v. Jung et al., 422 F.3d 630 (8th Cir. 2005) | access-date = March 22, 2006 | url = http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/05/09/043654P.pdf | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060403103728/http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/05/09/043654P.pdf | archive-date = April 3, 2006 | url-status = dead }}</ref>

bnetd developer Ross Combs and EFF staff attorney Jason Schultz criticized the appeals court ruling, claiming the ruling means software and hardware vendors can use a DMCA-EULA combination to prevent otherwise lawful reverse engineering and chill the development of interoperable systems.  Blizzard co-founder [[Mike Morhaime]] called the ruling "a major victory against software piracy."  An [[Entertainment Software Association]] representative also supported the ruling, claiming it reinforces the DMCA's ability to prevent "IP abuse and theft."<ref>{{cite web | last = Lyman | first = Jay | title = Bnetd reverse engineering ruling may stifle innovation | access-date = May 7, 2008 | url = http://archive09.linux.com/feature/48821 | date = October 17, 2005 | work = [[Linux.com]]}}</ref>

As a result of the litigation, the bnetd.org domain was transferred to Blizzard's control pursuant to the [[consent decree]] entered during the trial. The domain is now offline but still registered by Blizzard.<ref>{{cite web | title = Whois Information on bnetd.org | url = http://whois.smartweb.cz/en/object/bnetd.org/}}</ref> Although Blizzard won the case, the lawsuit did not stop the continued distribution of bnetd's open source code, nor of derivative projects such as [[PvPGN]]. Other hosts were quickly set up by third parties in countries where no [[anti-circumvention]] legislation equivalent to the DMCA exists.